Lecturing with Chapter 3

This week, I treated two discrete subjects in lecture.

1. MEDIEVAL ISLAM. I divided this topic in three sections:
a. Neighbors. Here I talked about how the Roman “mare nostrum” had morphed into a region of three civilizations by c. 750. I then described relations among Islam, the medieval West, and Byzantium, c. 750 and 1000. Really, just a brief review of the usual stuff—religious antagonism and misunderstanding; political tensions, esp. over claims to the imperial throne; trade, esp. in luxuries; intellectual imbalance.
b. Medieval Islam. Given the current blast of anti-Islamic sentiment in the USA, I decided to spend a fair bit of time on the fundamentals, so I talked with the students about Muhammad; the Quran, Hadith, and Sunnah; the Five Pillars of Islam; Sharia law; distinctions among Sunni, Shi’ite and Sufi Muslims. It was almost all in the textbook, but I thought it was worth going over again, and their questions indicated that this was, indeed, a good idea.
c. Islamic Iberia. I decided to focus a bit on medieval Europe’s closest Muslim neighbor and especially on the tenth-century heyday in Cordoba under Abd al-Rahman III and al-Mansur. I hit the convivencia angle with perhaps undue enthusiasm; I discussed intellectual life (esp. Ibn Rushd and Maimonides); and I wrapped up with an awesome picture of the Great Mosque of Cordoba. If this worked as I hope, the students have no doubt that tenth-century Cordoba was light years ahead of anything north of the Pyrenees (Paris was my main comparison).

2. MONASTICISM. My students are reading the Rule of St Benedict for their discussion this week, so I decided to supplement the treatment of the subject in chapter 2 with a broad overview of medieval monasticism. Here’s how I did it:
a. 400-800: Foundations. I began with different sorts of monasticism (Irish, eremitic, cenobitic); then moved on to St Benedict and his rule; and then discussed at length what I called “lived monasticism”—a large pot that included vows, daily routine, monastic enclosure, oblation, lay involvement. I also discussed the ways in which monks and nuns contributed to larger society (missionary work; retreats; refuge for travelers; alms for poor; education; economic impact; and of course, prayers), and how these communities were funded (labor, endowments, tithes, gifts). I talked briefly about double monasteries, Abbess Hilda, and the estimate that 1 in 4 monastics in this period were women.
b. 800-900: Crisis. You know, you know . . . Vikings, lack of oversight, lax discipline, too much lay involvement.
c. 900-1300: Reform (again and again). Here I marched them through the big reform movements—Cluny, Cistercians, mendicants—trying to emphasize that, although each reform reacted to failure, each reform also spoke to the hopes and promises of the monastic ideal. I ended with 1215, the 4th Lateran’s proscription on the founding of new orders, and the challenges this posed for later internal-only reform.
d. Women in Reformed Orders. I then went back over the same stuff, but from the point of view of women. I set up a problem that needed explanation—that is, the declining presence of women in monastic life (I threw out an estimate of roughly 1 in 12 by c. 1300). Why did this happen? I talked about (i) clerical celibacy and male anxiety; (ii) the poor synch between the new monastic virtues of the reformed orders (Cluniac liturgy; Cistercian taming of wilderness; mendicant preaching) and female roles; (iii) takeovers of female houses, perhaps a result of greater centralization; and (iv) the poverty of female monasteries. I then ended on an upbeat note by reviewing how holy women responded—i.e., female mysticism, female “independents” (anchoresses, vowesses, tertiaries, et al.), and last but not least, beguines.

This was a huge, grand-sweep lecture, but I’m hoping it will give rise to lots of “aha!” moments in the chapters ahead.

And, a confession. I didn’t make it through this lecture—ran out of time with the mendicants. But I didn’t mind, as the students were energetic and even (dare I say?) enthused. Lots of questions, lots of fun. I’ll finish it off on Tuesday.